“A week?” I asked, sounding bored at the prospect.
“Provided you can undo whatever damage you have obviously done,” he said, waving a careless hand toward Alex's stiff body. “She's of no use to me like this. She's still like this when I get back, just go ahead and get rid of her. Can't even have any fun with her when she's a zombie.”
Fun.
Fun.
I swallowed the bile and nodded. “I can do that.” I looked over at Alex, shaking my head like she was a nuisance, then looked back at Lex. “I can get her out of this sooner, you want me to put her on the case or wait for your go ahead?”
“By all means,” he said, splaying his hands that were stained red despite his rubbing, “put her to use.”
I felt myself nodding. “We done here?”
“It's no wonder no one likes working with you,” Lex said, his head tilting. “You are really a dreadful human being.” Coming from the scum of the earth, well, I guess I could consider that a compliment.
“You're paying me to hold onto the bitch. You want to dig at me about how I handle my shit, it will cost you twice as much.”
Lex sighed. “One week and I expect you to drop her off.”
“Where?” I asked, fighting the urge to toss Alex over my shoulder and haul ass out of there.
“My house.”
Shit.
He meant business with her.
The kind of long, drawn-out business I suspected her mother went through.
“Right,” I said, nodding, moving to the door, snagging the sleeve of Alex's shirt and dragging her with me. “See you then.”
Limp Dick Rick stood in the doorway until I turned back behind me, raising a brow at Lex who flicked a hand, and he moved out of the way.
Alex walked numbly to the passenger side and climbed up. I got into the driver's and tore off, not bothering to buckle. Just needing to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.
“Are we being followed?” Alex's voice reached me, making me jump slightly.
“What?”
“Are. We. Being. Followed?” she enunciated carefully, her words heavy with something I couldn't place.
“No,” I said with confidence. I had been paying attention, my mind running the same way.
“Pull over,” she said, watching the landscape become more desolate as we left the town behind.
“It's rain...”
“Pull the fucking car over!” she shrieked, shocking me enough to pull off to the shoulder and throw the car into park.
Before I could even turn to look at her, she was out of her belt and out of the door, slamming it hard behind her.
I swung out of the car, darting around it to find her bent forward throwing up violently beside the front wheel.
Fuck.
I forgot about the body. I know that was shitty and unfeeling of me. But it meant nothing to me. Apparently, it meant something to her. It was one thing for her to see the pictures of the things Lex had done. It was a whole other to see it right in front of your eyes, to smell the blood, to see it all over.
“Deep breath,” I said, reaching into the backseat for a spare bottle of water as the rain soaked through my clothes. “It'll pass.”
“You don't get it,” she said, her voice acidic as she rinsed and spit the water.
“I get it. That was fucked up to walk in on. But it's over. We got out. We have a week to figure out what we're gonna do and...”
“You. Don't. Get. It,” she seethed, turning to look at me and there were tears in her eyes.
“Explain it to me,” I tried in a soothing tone.
“I knew him!”
“Knew who, doll?”
“The dead guy, Breaker. I fucking knew him!”
Fuck.
I never stopped to consider that there was like a hacker underground. They probably all knew each other in a detached sort of way. “Babe... I know hackers run in the same circles and shit but...”
“No Breaker,” she said, shaking her head. She raked hands down her face like she could claw the image away. “I mean... I knew him, knew him.”
Fifteen
Alex
It was Glenn.
I followed Breaker who followed Lex into the second room, knowing it was probably not a good thing that we were being moved to a second location, but not having much of a choice.
And the second that I stepped through, my eyes fell to the chair.
And they found Glenn.
Glenn the sweet, slightly overweight hacker who taught me almost everything I knew. The only person on the planet aside from Breaker who knew even part of my story.
The guy I used to have sex with.
Weird, awkward, passionless sex.
But still.
I knew what his lips felt like on mine, what his body looked like. I knew his voice when he was excited for me when I finally understood a concept he was explaining or the way he said my name like a warning when he got frustrated with my ever-present runaway temper. I knew that he hated coffee and preferred energy drinks. That he thought crunchy cheese curls were superior to the puffed kind. I knew that his mother still bought him underwear for Christmas and his laptop cost four times what mine did (and mine was expensive to the point of obnoxious).
I knew him.
And he was dead.
By Lex's hands.
Like my mother.
Used as a puppet and bled dry.
Like my mother.
The god damn son of a bitch took everything, everything from me.
“What do you mean you knew him knew him?” Breaker asked, his head tilted at me, water spilling down his face and dripping off his beard. Funny because I was blissfully unaware of my own wetness.
“When I was out on my own... looking for people to help me figure out the hacking thing, I found Glenn. His name was Glenn,” I said, my voice wobbling a little and I winced at it. But I couldn't help it. It kept getting more and more shaky as I went on. “Glenn Gable and he was just a couple years older than me. And he was good and patient and he loved his mother and his hands were always warm to the point of being clammy. And he thought crunchy cheese curls beat out the puffed kind. Which is stupid. Puffs are way better. But he loved them and he downed them with green energy drinks and he used to rub my back when I would sit and stare at the computer all day every day trying to learn what he was trying to teach me and...”
“You dated him,” Breaker said, his voice soft. My eyes went to his, expecting to see mockery there. Because Glenn wasn't super hot guy badass material like Breaker was. But all I saw in Breaker's blue eyes was understanding. Sympathy.
“Yes,” I admitted, the tears that had been stinging my eyes finally winning out and brimming over. “It wasn't good. But he was good to me and I cared about him. And Lex killed him!”
“Oh baby...” he said, his arms reaching for me and hauling me against his chest as his arms squeezed me hard enough to make breathing difficult.
But in a weird way, it still felt good. So I turned my face into his neck and I let the tears come.
I wondered if Glenn's mother would ever know what happened to him. Or if he would just be a missing person and empty casket for her. I hadn't met her, but I had seen pictures. She was an even heavier, feminized version of Glenn. Same dark hair. Same roundish face. Same nice brown eyes. She looked like the kind of woman who cried at greeting cards.
She wouldn't have anyone to buy underwear for at Christmas anymore.